Contends Airspace Authorization Is A 'Disaster'

The FAA has seriously botched FAR Part 107 which covers the use of drones.

That is the opinion of drone lawyer Enrico Schaefer, who said during a podcast posted to dronelawpro.com that the FAA fundamentally does not know how business operates.

"We have this new Part 107, a key part of it is in order to fly in controlled airspace you needed an airspace authorization. The airspace authorization process has been yet another disaster for the FAA. They made the mistake of finalizing and implementing Part 107 before they had the ability to actually get people flying," Schaefer says in the podcast. "So if you are in Class G airspace, great you can fly under Part 107 without an airspace authorization. But most of the activity around UAV, most of the commerce that’s going to be done in UAV is going to be done in controlled airspace, B, C, D and surface E airspace. So the airspace authorization process clearly doesn’t work right now. The FAA acknowledges that the airspace authorization system and the website that they put in place for that doesn’t work. Commerce is impracticable if, in fact, a business doesn’t even know when or if they will be able to fly.

"Part 107 was a fraud by the FAA because they didn’t tell people by the way you won’t be able to fly in a controlled airspace. They launched this thing, they stopped processing Section 333 exemptions, they left this giant blank space for the UAV community to try to navigate, and it really was a misrepresentation and a complete fumbling the ball by the FAA.

Schaefer says that the FAA does not fundamentally understand how business works. "It’s one thing to say all we know this isn’t working for businesses. It’s another to say we are going to have an app in the future that can solve the problem. What is missing is the piece of the puzzle of what’s going to happen now? What is going to happen over the next couple months? You can’t just say it can be 90 days you have to file for airspace authorization. You may as well tell people not to file an all. You can’t plan flights 90 days in advance. That makes no sense."

There is more. Check out the entire podcast at the link below.

(Image from file)

FMI: www.dronelaw.pro/faas-handling-part-107/